Patience with God

TGIM.

Why does the shortest month of the year always seem like the longest? The cold Chicago weather did give me plenty of time to read some new material, when I wasn’t getting caught up on The Office and Big Love.

I read this book for school but found it entirelly entertaining none-the-less.  It was not an attack of Christianity as a whole, nor it’s doctrine or principles, merely it’s more popular and conservative members in the States. If you need any more reassurances why you shouldn’t read the Left Behind series (see video below), why George W. Bush was practically blasphemous in his declaration that the United States way of life had taken over Jesus’ as the light of the world or how crazy Pat Robertson, Jim Wallace and the like are, its worth perusing. But I’m guessing if you already know that you don’t need to waste your time, and if you don’t know that you don’t care to find out.

I finally found time to finish the quartet of the famed Four Horsemen with S. Harris’ End of Faith.  Harris, along with his friends Hitchens and Dawkins has absolutely nothing nice to say about religion whatsoever. Of Holy Scriptures he writes

“It is time we admitted, from kings and presidents on down, that there is no evidence that any of our books was authored by the Creator of the universe.”

“Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him. Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything – anything – be more ridiculous? And yet this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in.”

And his rants on religion are not merely limited to Christianity. His criticisms of Islam are strong and perhaps a bit too broad.

“Moderate Islam – really moderate, really critical of Muslim irrationality- scarcely seems to exist. If it does, it is doing as good a job at hiding as moderate Christianity did in the fourteenth century (and for similar reasons)… There are other ideologies with which to expunge the last vapors of reasonableness from a society’s discourse, but Islam is undoubtedly one of the best we’ve got.

He goes on to say that an intervention of sorts is necessary in the Middle East by us in the Western hemisphere, as well as a call to admitting that some cultures (assuming not ours) are not as developed morally as others (assuming ours).  I don’t think I’ll be needing to read any more new atheism any time soon. Not only do I feel confident to speak of, or if necessary defend, some of their arguments, it’s starting to get repetitive. This is also how I am beginning to feel about debates over atheism vs. Christianity. I think the two should not be squared off in the first place. To me, it’s like holding a debate between movies vs. Saturday Night Live or baseball vs. Labron James. Anyway, I think I have seen every combination so far of Christopher Hitchens vs. Douglas Wilson, Douglas Wilson vs. Daniel Dennett, Dennett vs. Dinesh D’souza, D’souza vs. Dawkins, Dawkins vs Allister McGrath, Mcgrath vs. Hitchens, Chris Hitchens vs. Peter Hitchens (brothers), Hitchens vs. William Lane Craig, and so on and so forth until everybody buys their books and they all secretly shake hands at all the money they are making.
Dawkins, interestingly enough has recently decided to retire from public debates with Creationists because, as I’ve heard him say else where that that would be the equivalent of an astronomer having a serious  debate with an astrologer.

I really, really liked this book. One of my profs recommended it to me when she saw me reading The End of Faith and thought I would appreciate it. I did. Frank Schaeffer’s dad, Franciss Schaeffer, was one of the leading right-wing apologists in the sixties and seventies and has a big influence on conservative Christianity in America today, years after his death. My dad told me today that from what he remembers, before Francis Schaeffer and his buddies, Christians stayed out of politics for the most part. It was the elder Schaeffer along with Rick Warren and James Dobson types that helped establish the conservative evangelical right that is known today. Frank comes from an interesting background, one that he appreciates and respects highly but also is slightly embarrassed of and wishes he could change. So yea, I enjoyed the read.

Frank went chapter to chapter kind of just picking on anybody who claims to have The Answer, be that in science of scripture or a sinner’s prayer or whatever. According to him, Bill Maher is an idiot jerk for only picking on weak Christians, Richard Dawkins just wants to push his website and make money, Chris Hitchens cares less about spiritual matters and more about screwing anybody he wants, Calvin was absurd to believe in pre-destination, Daniel Dennet spends too much time asking what love is – chemically, evolutionary- and not how great it is, Rick Warren is giving a message “less about God than it is about trying to convince his readers to become American-style evangelicals”, C.S. Lewis never would have gotten to Wheaton as a drinker and a smoker, the Billy Graham foundation spends too much money on museums than ministry, and in general the the Christian leaders he was raised on “… always had to feign a degree of certainty about the Big Questions that no sane person ever feels.”

When he wasn’t busy disregarding anybody who claims to have the answers, Schaeffer paints what is for me a beautiful picture of a life that is enjoyed and well lived, without the certainty of knowing where he will go when he dies, nor of the exact purpose of his (or any of ours) existence around here. He admits that when he “loves” somebody, that may very well be just a chemical and physical attraction evolved from evolutionary practices, but that does nothing to say to him that it is any less genuine or necessary. When he prays he does so not because he necessarily believes that God will heal people more if they pray (wouldn’t we see a huge increase in longevity and better health among, say, the Pentecostals who weekly believe that God performs miraculous deeds?), but because it is the best way he knows how to connect to something bigger and wish wellness over someone he cares deeply for.

Schaeffer’s book urges an emphasis  less about apologetics and more about character. When he was writing a book about the Marine Corps, he got to spend some time on a base, watching the Marines going through their daily routine of marching and drilling and spinning their guns around in circles inches from their chest. This was their practice, their way of preparing themselves for the battle, for the real thing. Without this they would be hopeless in combat. He beautifully compares this rehearsal with thinking and studying about the origins of life, the meaning of life, the purpose and future of our lives; they are just practice for us-before actually living full, complete and wonderful lives.

“Concentrating on belief rather than on character leads some people – be they atheist or religious – to get stuck on the training rules and miss the whole point of “boot camp”. They never get their ‘eagle, globe, and anchor’ emblem and graduate. It’s as if there were platoons of recruits stuck on Parris Island who had never graduated and who, now as crazy old men, are still marching around yelling cadence, having mistaken the training phase for being Marines.”!

I took this thought as simply wonderful. Let’s shut up for awhile about why we think life is purpose-full, good, unique, full of beauty and creativeness, and enjoy the fact that it is.

That’s all. Three songs I’m addicted to this week.

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